Best known here as the villainous Loki in The Avengers and Thor, Hiddleston will next be seen on TV as Henry V in PBS series The Hollow Crown. Debuting Sept. 20, Crown adapts four of Shakespeare's "Henried" plays, three of which – Henry IV Parts I and II and Henry V – feature Hiddleston.

It's a lot of Shakespeare -- but not all Shakespeare. The four plays are presented in streamlined, cinematic versions that stress action and narrative without, says Hiddleston, sacrificing the best of what Shakespeare wrote. "There is some stuff that seems archaic, and it can go without any loss of the whole…It's such a privilege to be able to put Shakespeare on the screen, that you want to make it thrilling cinema."

He did regret one cut: A soliloquy for Henry in Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt. But he agreed that while the soliloquy worked well on stage, it would not work on film.

On the other hand, Hiddleston says, he did come up with one idea that worked far better on film than it would on stage. There's a scene where Henry IV (played by Jeremy Irons) is dressing down Hiddleston's wayward Prince Hal, and Hal isn't paying attention. Hiddleston thought Irons should respond by slapping him – and Irons complied.

"It really hurt. He was wearing two very regal rings."

Shakespeare clearly is a passion for Hiddleston: He even says the Bard was his inspiration for building Loki. ("He's really a Shakespearian villain in many senses.") And it doesn't matter to him whether an actual man called William Shakespeare wrote the plays or not.

"Whoever wrote these plays has just such a depth of compassion and understanding for all of human nature that I find dizzying ... He understands everybody, and that's what I think distinguishes him from pretty much every other dramatic writer I can think of.